


Naked Bootleg

by throughadoor



Category: Scandal (TV)
Genre: Gen
Language: English
Status: Completed
Published: 2013-12-22
Updated: 2013-12-22
Packaged: 2018-01-05 13:39:56
Rating: General Audiences
Warnings: No Archive Warnings Apply
Chapters: 1
Words: 3,861
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/1094519
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/throughadoor/pseuds/throughadoor
Summary: <blockquote class="userstuff">
              <p>A new client with a big secret needs help burying a compromising photograph. Meanwhile, Abby gives freelance cyber-snooping advice, fails to appreciate the romantic comedy plot formula and wants to know why DC still has a racial slur for a professional sports team.</p>
            </blockquote>





	Naked Bootleg

**Author's Note:**

  * For [templeandarche](https://archiveofourown.org/users/templeandarche/gifts).



> Set during the 10-month time lapse between "Nobody Likes Babies" and "Whiskey Tango Foxtrot." Should be compliant with canon through the third season winter finale, but no spoilers beyond the aforementioned "Nobody Likes Babies."

"So, what happened? Did you have a problem installing the keystroke logging software on his laptop?"

"No, that part was easy, and you were right about his password, too."

"Well, who was it, then? Was it that girl from work? The one who goes to his church? Was it his ex?"

"No … that's just it, I didn't find anything, he's not cheating on me with _anyone_."

Standing on opposite sides of the cash register at Great Wall, Abby winces as Melinda's face crumples and the tone of her voice trails off into a wail. Great Wall is Pope and Associates' preferred choice for Chinese takeout and Melinda is the owner's daughter and part-time cashier. The last time Abby picked up an order at Great Wall, she gave Melinda a few tips on how to cyber-snoop on her apparently-not-actually-cheating boyfriend and now it's backfired in spectacular fashion.

"What am I going to do now?" Melinda says, sniffling. "If I tell him what I did, he'll break up with me!"

Abby sighs. She didn't know how to talk to teenage girls when she _was_ a teenage girl, and age and distance have not made it seem any less daunting. "Do you remember what I said," she asks, "when you said that you just wanted to look through his email?"

"That if I was willing to snoop through his email, our relationship was already over," Melinda recites dully, looking down at the counter. "The only reason to snoop through his email was to figure out whether I wanted to light all his stuff on fire before I dumped him."

"Exactly!" Abby says, clapping her hands together. Behind her, she hears someone cough in that fake exaggerated way. She whips her head around to glare at some impatient asshole jock in sweaty gym clothes. "Calm down, buddy," she hisses at him.

"Oh, no, it's okay," Melinda says. "I don't want your food to get cold." She pushes the takeout bags across the counter. "Here you go," she says. "I made sure to give you extra moo shoo sauce."

"Thanks, Melinda," Abby says. She gathers up two handfuls of plastic bags and stares down impatient asshole jock as she turns to walk out of the restaurant.

On the way back to the office, she doesn't think about what else she could have told Melinda. She doesn't think about whether she should have told Melinda that it won't really make a difference, whether she tries to live with the truth or tries to live with a lie. She doesn't think about how much a person can do to doom a relationship and still feel betrayed when it's over. She doesn't think about David. 

These days, Abby just tries not to think too much.

*

When Abby finally gets back, Harrison and Quinn are standing just outside the conference room, nonchalantly trying to spy into Olivia's office. To Abby, they look like an oddly-matched pair, Harrison in pink suspenders and Quinn in one of her sad librarian sweaters.

"New client?" Abby says as she walks up behind them. She's rewarded as they both startle at the sound of her voice and Abby snickers when Quinn bangs her elbow against the door jam.

"Walk-in," says Harrison, glancing at her over his shoulder. Abby moves to join them and shoos Harrison away when he tries to reach for the takeout bags. "Ski cap down to here," he says as he pantomimes pulling something down from the top of his head to near-eye level. "Big dark glasses."

"Majorly freaked out," Quinn adds pointlessly.

Olivia's door is closed and whoever is in there has his back turned, so all Abby can see is that it's a guy with short dreads wearing a dark blue track suit. Olivia is inside with the mysterious potential client, focused on him with her best concerned listening eyes. There's no sign of Huck, but Abby assumes he's lurking around somewhere.

"Care for a friendly wager?" Abby asks as she slides past Quinn and Harrison into the conference room and starts to lay out the cartons of food. She pulls a container of soup out of the bag and holds it up like a game show prize. "Winner gets the last wonton," she says.

"Corporate whistle blower," Harrison says, and then seems to think better of it. "No, wait," he says, sliding into a chair at the conference table, "more like jealous husband."

"Nope," Abby says, sitting down across from him. "Looks too young. Congressional staffer who saw too much."

"Maybe," Harrison says, rubbing his hands together. "But I'm gonna say … embassy staffer who saw too much."

"Embassy staffer who got a little too friendly with the ambassador's wife," Abby volleys back.

"How about … embassy staffer with a dead body in his trunk?" Quinn says brightly as she sits down next to Harrison.

Abby rolls her eyes, reaching out to snag her hard-earned container of extra moo shoo sauce. "Oh, great job," she says. "Way to make it creepy."

Almost as if that's his cue, Huck wanders into the conference room, grabs an egg roll and says nothing. Inside Olivia's office, the new client turns away from Olivia to answer his phone and Abby gets her first look at his face.

"Uh, guys, better luck next time," she says, "because that's Malik Washington."

Abby catches recognition in Huck's face, but both Harrison and Quinn say, "Who?" practically in unison.

"Are you kidding me?" Abby asks. "Malik Washington. He plays for the team whose name we don't say because it's an offensive racial slur."

"Abby, what the hell are you talking about?" Harrison says, huffing and clearly frustrated to not be the one in the know.

Before Abby gets a chance to lord it over him, Huck says, "He's a running back on the Redskins." He leans across the table to grab another egg roll. "I have him on my fantasy team."

*

"Trying to keep an arrest out of the papers. DUI, maybe."

"Nope. Steroid scandal. That's gotta be it."

The next day, everyone's back at the conference room table, waiting for Olivia to deliver the rundown on their newest client. Abby and Harrison are killing time by trying to guess why Malik Washington wants to hire them. Quinn is nursing her coffee and Huck's behind his laptop, probably perfecting the super-secret government spy algorithm he uses to draft the optimal fantasy football team.

"Secret love child," says Harrison.

"Point-shaving accusation," says Abby. 

Harrison steeples his fingers and says, "Girlfriend caught him cheating."

"Hmm," Abby says, momentarily out of options. She points a finger at Quinn. "And do not even say 'dead body in the trunk.'"

At that moment, Olivia breezes into the conference room. "Listen up," she says. "Meet our new client." She holds up a stack of photos for the wall. "This is Malik Washington. He's a professional football player. More specifically, he's a running back for the Washington Redskins."

"Which, wow, seriously antiquated racist name, by the way," Abby says. Olivia shoots Abby a look that's pure third-grade teacher, and Abby mimes zipping her lip. 

"As I was saying," Olivia continues. "Malik is their star player. He just signed a $40 million dollar contract." As she's talking, she's putting up three photos onto the wall. "Here's Malik on the cover of Sports Illustrated," she says, pointing at the first photo. "Here he is at a United Way charity gala," she says next, pointing to a picture of Malik Washington grinning in a shoulder-straining tuxedo, holding one of those photo-op oversized checks. 

"And, here he is joining the Presidential Council on Physical Fitness," Olivia says. She nods at the third picture, a photo of Malik Washington shaking hands with Fitzgerald Grant. Olivia's absolute non-reaction to a photograph of the president is no less than what Abby would expect.

"So," Quinn says, "he's kind of a big deal."

"Exactly," Olivia says. "Last week Malik got _this_ in the mail." She holds up another photo. This one is a grainy enlargement of what looks like a camera phone shot. But it's still unmistakably Malik Washington, asleep in bed with another guy. 

"Wow," Abby says. "I did _not_ see that one coming."

Huck says, "I'd need an electronic copy of the image to know for sure if it's been altered."

Olivia shakes her head. "He doesn't want us to prove it's been altered," she says. "Because it hasn't been altered. He thinks it was taken by someone inside his house, obviously while he was asleep. He just wants us to make sure it never gets out."

Abby wrinkles up her nose. "So he's a rich, famous, socially conscious professional athlete who could be an inspiration to millions of gay kids if he came out, and we're going to help him stay closeted?"

"He's the client," Olivia says, hands on her hips. "And it's what he wants. Let's get to work."

*

Abby and Harrison are supposed to spend the night putting out feelers at the bars in Logan Circle, seeing if anyone recognizes the other guy in a very carefully cropped copy of the Malik Washington bedroom shot. However, it quickly becomes clear that Harrison is going to have _much_ better luck chatting up these bar patrons on his own. Abby gives him a smirk and her half-finished cosmopolitan and heads home for the night.

Abby's apartment still looks like she spends the majority of her nights sleeping elsewhere, even though that hasn't been true for months. Most days, she gets dressed by putting on whatever clothes happen to be hanging up in the forest of dry cleaning bags that populates her entryway. The lightbulb in her bathroom burned out three months ago, and instead of bothering to replace it she's started to get pretty good at brushing her teeth in the dark. There is absolutely nothing in her refrigerator.

And so, after arriving home at an unexpectedly early hour, Abby retreats to the living room with a box of Honey Nut Cheerios and turns on the TV. The first thing she sees on the screen is a three-facelifts-ago Meg Ryan, and she's saying, "I only know him through, uh, you're not going to believe this--" and then pre-hair transplant Tom Hanks says, "Oh, let me guess. Through the internet."

"C'mon, you've got to be kidding me," Abby says, waving a hand at the TV. " _He's_ obviously the guy from the internet. You already have his IP address, just do a quick reverse DNS lookup and this movie would be over in twenty minutes!" 

She shoves a handful of cereal in her mouth, because talking to the TV and expecting an answer back is probably the first sign of becoming a batty old lady. She channel-flips away from Meg and Tom over to ESPN to see if anything about Malik Washington has hit _SportsCenter_.

*

The next day, Abby is somewhere in Richmond, Virginia, sandwiched in a line of cars trying to enter the Redskins' practice facility. She glances at herself in the rearview mirror and says to her reflection, in a bored but urgent way, "Yeah, hi, I'm a writer with _Sports Illustrated for Kids_ , I should be on the list." She then repeats this to the security guard stationed at the entrance to the visitor's parking lot and repeats it again to the receptionist sitting at the desk in the training facility's lobby.

And it's an easy sell, because her name actually _is_ on the list. A media flunky is called to show Abby to an interview room. Inside, Malik Washington is waiting for her, stretched out in a padded folding chair with a bag of rapidly-melting ice taped to his right knee.

Once the media flunky has left them alone, Abby says, "Meet Benjamin Lambert," repeating the name Harrison was able to get from a bartender last night. "He runs his own marketing firm and did some pro-bono work last year for the United Way, which is where the two of you met." Abby holds up a photo that looks like it came from the same set as Malik with the oversized check. In this one, he's shaking hands with someone who's recognizable as the other man in the camera phone picture.

"Yeah, uh, Ben, I think that was his name," Malik says, looking down to busy himself with shifting the bag of ice against his knee.

"We haven't been able to talk to him yet--"

Malik's eyes shoots up. "No, no, leave him out of it," he says.

Abby tilts her head. "Obviously, we'll be discreet," she promises.

But Malik shakes his head. "Whoever took the picture, we were both asleep, right?" he says. "I met the guy one time, at the United Way thing, like a year ago. Maybe he doesn't even remember. Let's keep it that way, alright? Just leave him out of it."

"Mr. Washington, it's entirely possible that Ben Lambert was in collusion with the person who took the picture." Because it's easy for Abby to imagine how it would unfold: Ben Lambert would be charming but non-threatening at the gala. He'd be abstractly impressed with Malik's celebrity but claim not to know anything about football. He wouldn't make a big deal about needing to follow Malik home in a separate car. And then he'd jump him as soon as they walked in the front door, so Malik would forget to re-set the alarm on the home security system.

For a minute, there's no sound in the room except for the drip-drip-drip of melting ice hitting the concrete floor. Abby doesn't say anything, letting Malik replay the night with Benjamin Lambert in his own head, waiting for him to experience that rush of betrayal and realize she's probably right.

Instead, Malik just frowns, and shakes his head again. The bag of ice makes a sloshing sound as he leans forward in his chair. "Look," he says, "I hired you to find the person who took the picture. That's what I want. Figure out who got into my house, and leave the other guy out of it."

*

Stuck in traffic on the drive back from Richmond, Abby decides to try calling Sonia Sawyer. "Sonia, hi," Abby says when Sonia picks up, "how are you are?"

"Abby Whelan. Haven't heard from you in a while," she says. Sonia is a sports reporter at the _DC Sun_. She owes Abby a favor because a couple years back Abby gave her a tip on the story that finally got her off the high school field hockey beat. 

"You're still covering football, right?" Abby asks.

"You bet," Sonia says.

"I just cannot believe, in this day and age, that we have a local professional sports team called the Redskins. I mean, honestly, why not just call them the Washington Injun Savages?"

"Tradition?" Sonia says. "The nostalgia factor? When you watch the game now, you want it to be exactly how it was when you watched football with your dad on Sundays when you were a kid?"

Abby thinks Sonia might actually be on to something there. She remembers that Charles' family watched Redskins games together on Sundays more religiously than they'd ever attended church.

"So, what's up?" Sonia says. "Do you have something for me?"

"Actually, I'm hoping you might have something for me. Anything you might be hearing about Malik Washington."

"Well, I'm hearing that he's finally looking a hundred percent after his collarbone injury from last season, but I'm guessing that's not exactly what you're looking for."

Abby thinks that, in this case, no news is probably good news. So, she asks Sonia to keep her ear to to the ground and promises that they'll catch up for lunch soon. Unfortunately, the topic of lunch reminds Abby that she's completely starving and trapped in the car for at least another hour. She inches the car forward in traffic and then leans over the gearshift, to see if there's still a half-empty bag of Funyuns under the passenger seat.

*

"I checked the home security system. I listened to the police scanner logs. I looked at every traffic camera in a ten-block radius," Huck says, slouching down in his seat at the table in the conference room. He sounds increasingly despondent with every step he lists, each one failing to produce any information on Malik Washington's intruder. "I even hacked into his neighbor's nanny cam, just in case it had a view of the driveway," he adds. "There's nothing." He shakes his head and pushes back from his chair, presumably wandering back to his office to do whatever it is that he does in there.

"So,” Harrison says, turning to Abby and Quinn, "just to review, we're dealing with someone who's so good at covering their tracks that they were able to outsmart _Huck_ , and this person used these ultra-stealth super spy skills to break into our client's house, take a single picture in his bedroom and then leave."

"Well, either that or it was a poltergeist," Abby says. She gets up from the table to look at the pictures of Malik Washington that are still up on the wall. The one of Malik and Ben Lambert in bed is side-by-side of the one of them shaking hands at the charity gala. "They look … happy," she says.

Quinn comes to stand by Abby and tilts her head. "They look like they're asleep," she says.

"Sure, fine," Abby says. "But they look _happy_. You don't fall asleep like that with someone you've just met."

They both stare at the picture for a few seconds. Since Abby started working with Olivia, she has pawed through more underwear drawers than she'd care to remember. She once read a client's diary and only stopped long enough to mark the passages relevant to her divorce trial with highlighter. She's snooped through little black books and ovulation calendars, read college sweetheart letters and medical test results. She's so completely and totally willing to invade a client's privacy to get what she needs for their case that she knows it was a little bit hypocritical when she flipped her shit about the bobblehead tapes. 

So it doesn't really make any sense that she can't look at this pixelated head-and-shoulders shot of Malik Washington and Benjamin Lambert asleep without feeling like she's intruding on something.

"You know what?" Quinn says finally. "It looks like a selfie." 

"Huh," Harrison says, walking over to join Abby and Quinn. "Shot from above, slightly tilted angle."

"Look at Lambert's left arm." Quinn points to where his arm stretches up and out of the frame. "I thought he was like, you know, like this," she says, throwing her own arm above her head to imitate a sleeping sprawl. "But what if there's nothing on the security system log because no one broke into the house? What if _Lambert_ took the picture?"

"We need to talk to Lambert," Abby says, crossing her arms. 

"But, what about what the client said?" Quinn asks. "About how we should leave Lambert out of it?"

"I don't care," Abby says. "We need. To talk. To Lambert." 

Quinn looks distressed. "Isn't this, like, a 'the customer is always right' thing?"

Harrison laughs, a single bark. "We're not exactly selling vacuum cleaners here," he says. 

From behind them, Abby hears Olivia say, "We need to talk to Lambert." 

All three turn around to see Olivia leaning in the conference room door. Abby wants to tell Quinn and Harrison to take a picture, because this is what nonchalant listening-in looks like. 

"We talk to Lambert," Olivia says definitively. "Abby, c'mon, you're with me." She nods at Harrison and Quinn. "You two, tell Huck we have an idea where the photo might have originated, see what he can dig up."

*

They take Olivia's car to drive over to Lambert's office. When Abby and Olivia first met in law school at Georgetown, Olivia did all the driving because she had a car and Abby had student loans up to her ears and a Top Ramen diet. Later, Charles' parents paid off Abby's law school debt and called it an "engagement present." Even then, Abby knew it would have been more accurate to call it a dowery. That was right around the time Abby and Olivia first lost touch, when Olivia went off to study for the bar and Abby went off to marry Charles.

When they get to Lambert's office building, Olivia effortlessly bullies her way past the secretary. Once they're seated alone with Lambert in his private office, Olivia launches in on him.

"So, Mr. Lambert. Last fall, you helped the United Way plan their big charity gala," Olivia says. 

"Yes, that's right." 

"Malik Washington was one of the honorees that night," says Abby. "For his generous contribution to their inner-city after school programs. What a great guy."

"Yeah, for sure," Lambert says, shifting in his seat. 

"So you met Malik at the gala," Olivia says, picking up steam. "And then you went home with him. And you thought, hey, here I am in bed with a famous professional athlete, I'll just take a few souvenirs while he's asleep?"

"We didn't meet at the gala," Lambert says, frowning in confusion. "He only came to the gala as a favor to me, because --" he trails off, and then says, "He told you we hooked up after the gala. Just that one time, and that's when the picture is from?" He doesn't wait for Olivia and Abby to answer. "We were together for _two years_ ," he hisses. "And I kept it a secret the whole time. I was patient. I waited. But he was never going to come out."

After the momentary burst of anger, Lambert deflates like a punctured balloon, slumping forward to lean over his desk. And now, Abby can just imagine Lambert putting that photo in the mail. That momentary burst of _if he really loves me, he'll forgive me_ would've be enough to seal the envelope, even though he knew that even if Malik forgave him, he'd never trust him again. 

"I sent him the picture," Lambert says. "He's so convinced it'd be the end of the world if he got outed. I thought that if he thought it was actually going to happen, he might realize it wouldn't be that bad after all. But I guess I was wrong."

*

"--and so, Olivia went to break the news to Malik," Abby says. She's back at the conference room table eating Chinese takeout with Harrison, Quinn and Huck. It was Harrison's turn to pick up from Great Wall, so Abby doesn't know if Melinda is faring any better than Ben Lambert right now.

"So, you think Lambert did it because he thought it would get them back together?" Quinn asks.

Abby doesn't know exactly what Melinda was thinking when she put a keystroke logger on her boyfriend's computer, or what Ben Lambert thought would happen when he tried to blackmail Malik into outing himself. But Abby remembers what she was thinking when she walked out of David's apartment with the Cytron card.

"No, Abby says. "I think there are certain things you only do once you've decided there's no going back."

**Author's Note:**

> In football, a naked bootleg is a play where the quarterback fakes a handoff to the running back and then runs without a blocker in the opposite direction of where the running back is headed. The success of the naked bootleg is based on the quarterback's ability to draw the attention of the defense toward himself and away from the running back.


End file.
